The Church of What's Happening Now: The New Testament - #543 - A.J. Benza

Episode Date: December 18, 2017

A.J. Benza ,actor, author, the former gossip columnist for the New York Daily News and the host of the "Fame is a Bitch" podcast, joins Joey Diaz and Lee Syatt LIVE in studio. This podcast is brought to you by: anchor.fm - Anchor is the easiest way to make and distribute your own podcast. Check it out and make your podcast at anchor.fm/church   Hellotushy.com - Go to Hellotushy.com/church for 10% off of your order and stop using nasty toilet paper forever!   Onnit.com. Use Promo code CHURCH for a 10% discount at checkout.   Recorded live on 12/17/2017.

I can't. I can't look at it. Greetings to PodcastVille. This episode of the Church of What's Happened now is brought to you by Anchor. If you ever wanted to make a podcast like this one, but thought the process would be expensive and horrible, no need to worry. Anchor is the quickest and easiest way to make and distribute your own podcast. Just download the app, record with your phone, and bam! Publish.

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Kick this fucking meal, Lee. Yeah. It's a beautiful day to be alive. Oh shit. Oh shit. Kick it, Lee. Monday. The 18th, motherfucker.

fuck is slinging dick and giving out bazookas. Fuck it. Church of what's happening now. Oh shit. Wow. Stereo MC? Stereo MC.

How the fuck did I know that? Fucking tremendous. This is the church of what's happening? Bring about a sense of personality. So as I walk I look around. The church of what's happening now, motherfucker's. A.J. Benza, the Christ killer, Lysai.

Yeah. Joey. It's Monday, bitches, and you made it. Who's better than you? A.J. Benzuch. Wow. Lee Syatt. We had a great weekend.

Everything was happy. I want to thank Steakums for sending us those dirty fucking boxes. Steakums. I haven't had them yet, but I'm ready for my asshole to explode into that fucking bidet. Let me tell you something about Steakams. Like Lee came back and he said he shit right away. You know why? Because when you eat a Steakam, it replenishes your system.

It's a shock. It's like fucking drinking water out of the Hudson. and fucking river. You're gonna be sick for an hour or two. But let me tell you some, your immune system, you could fuck a crack hole while they're shooting you

with fucking, with the flu bug, while they're shooting fucking and bowl up your asshole and you'll cough, you'll fucking pee, and you'll be right back at work tomorrow in the morning.

You know how they sell combo packs at stores? That'd be a great combo pack. What's that? Steakums and a tushy bidet. Forget about it. Oh my. And by the way,

I was thinking about it. If you have like a white elephant, like a secret Santa. That's a perfect gift for that. That would be you'd be the talk of the office. Steakums, but I was talking about Tushy. You did Steakums? Steakums. With onion, you fucking do them up with onions. You fucking do them up with

onions, nice, a little garlic in the pan. Forget about it. Two or three a bit of time, hot fucking roll, crusty. Forget about it. With some or right of French fries. Oh, my God. Shit. I would stand up at this sink and not even sit down and eat them. Just let the fucking juice fall in the sink. Oh, my God. I was telling these guys I had. I had

him, I used to kill my mother. Yeah. Like my mother would cook like a Cuban meal. Right. Oh. I want to eat fucking steak. That must have killed her. Killed her. She never liked that shit. Of course. And I went on those for like a year straight. Every night. Every night? Every fucking night. While I, while I showered, the French fries would be getting cooked.

Oh, my God. And then I come down with underwear and cook the steak of an underwear and sneakers on like a savage. You understand me? Sacrilegious. And then I would eat and pick the fire. I wouldn't even put the fries in a dish. I would eat them right off the tin from the oven. You just put salt on them and pepper and let them cool down. By the time they're cooling down, the steak em is cooking. You blast it out and you eat two steakums. You know what I'm Cuban.

You give me white Wonderbread, fresh Wonderbread, a little bit of toast on, a little bit of butter. You put the steak on there with the onions. But warm butter, warm butter with the fucking with the cheese. You're brand new. Well, cheese on anything, you're fine. You're brand fucking new. I was telling them I ate them. I ate them for so long

and I played basketball one day and that was the week I was clogged up like it was like I ate 50 Vicodins that type of clogged up when you fight

I've been in shit I went up my fingers and tried to get it out years ago and when you're sitting in a toilet you're in pain you're in fucking pain and that's why

I had those farts that pre fart before everything came out yeah the cork and let me tell you something that whole bus was fucking yelling and then I farted again

a half hour later and they kept saying he's changing flavors but It was fucking crazy. The chiliers were crying. There was a bunch of chiliers, like white chicks that were just like, the white chicks are crying.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The Italian chick. Yeah, no, they get. They got it. Because their father does all that fucking life. My father used to fart in the frozen food section when he was shot, but he'd hang his ass over like the meat, the frozen food. And he'd fought and he'd block us in.

It was murder. Murder. But he would laugh. He loved it. I love it. I love it when you fart and nobody knows it to you. One time he fought it so bad at work that the person at work called a fire department so it was a gas leak.

And he knew it was his fault. That's the best. You laugh your assort. You don't say nothing. The best story of my entire family was my dad farted and made my cousin throw up. And I was like 10 and there was a girl and she ran into the room. We're playing video game. She's like, your dad farted and she just threw up in the bathroom.

It was the best day of my life. So what the fuck have you been since I last saw you? Well, if I've been, you know, it's a good question. I haven't seen you. I'm going to be honest. It's got to be 10 years. 10 years. You were just finishing up at A and E maybe?

What was the channel? That was a D.E channel. But I stopped with E in 2000. So, you know what? I did mysteries and scandals at E for five, six years. Then I did high stakes poker on Game Show Network, which was a really good show for poker fans for five years. Everybody watched it.

I was Gabe Kaplan, was my co-host. I was his co-host because he knows poker. And that was a show that just took off. We had billboards in Vegas, million-dollar buying games. It was hot shit. When poker was at, it's zenith, you know. And that was great. And then the economy, you know, 2006, whatever that year was,

when the whole, everything fucking fell out. And I fell out, everything fell out. The network dropped the show. And then it was an odyssey. Then I just didn't know what to do. And I ended up going, I had a book, I had an idea for a book. And I went to New York. to live with my sister, all right?

My sister bought the house we lived in as kids. So I went back with my wife and my kids to go to New York because I was writing a book about the summer of 1974, about there was a summer where my father was a tough Sicilian. His brother was a doctor, but he had a gay son from New Jersey. And then his second son, who was 10, was showing the same signs of being gay also.

So my father's brother called one night in the summer of 74. But it was so vivid, I wrote a book about it. And I heard my uncle talking on the phone saying to my father, Al, you know, Gino was showing the same signs as Larry. He's showing he has brain damage. They called it brain damage in the 70s. Not his gay, homosexual, brain damage. And my uncle begged my father, can you take Gino for the summer?

You know, your house is loud. You got the music. You got the homemade wine. You play stickball, playboy magazines everywhere. AJ, just toughen him up. Let's get him out of it. And my father said, sure, we'll take him in. So for that summer, we took in my effeminate cousin,

and we thought, we'll change him. We didn't know what the fuck we were doing. But what happened inevitably was that he changed us. My father saw that, okay, this isn't going to be what I thought it was. He's gay. And we got to adapt to him, and we got to protect him and nurture him and make him stronger. and it was a wonderful summer. And I wrote a book called 74 and Sunny

that came out in 2015. And it was a beautiful summer. And obviously my cousin grew up to be gay. He's married now, living in New York. But that summer changed my life. But it was an amazing time because my father who, look, my father was the Sicilian Archie bunker.

I heard Spick, Nigger. I heard Wop. I mean, he didn't give a fuck. He was against all flags. But when he saw my cousin that was obviously gay, he said, okay, I got to change. So one day, this is when everything changed. This is a scene out of a fucking movie, and it will be. I'm in the pool.

My father goes, get out of the pool. I got to talk to this. What's matter? He goes, come here, get out of the pool. And we go to the front of the house, and we lived on Long Island. Nice neighborhood. And on the sidewalk in front of the house, it said in chalk, go home queer. So some kids wanted

They were sending a message to my cousin My father said who did this I said I don't know I said it might be the Dugan brothers There were three Irish kids down the street I said I saw them earlier He said I'm gonna take a walk So my father who was an ex undercover cop

He puts a fucking gun in his back waistband Of his dungaree shorts And he's holding me My hand I'm 12 My cousin's 10 And we start walking to this house To the Irish house And my father says

point in which house. I said, they live over there, Dad. He knocks on the door. Mr. Dugan is a banker. He comes down. Oh, can I help you? Yeah, Mr. Dugan, I'm Al Benza. Oh, hi. What's the problem? Well, I think your sons wrote something on my sidewalk. That's not too nice. Well, I don't think my sons would do that. Well, they wrote home or go home queer they wrote. Well, listen, Mr. Benza, maybe you ought to take this someplace else because obviously, you know, you're wrong. My father punched through the screen door, knocked the guy down, opened the door, sat on top of him, put the gun to his head,

and said, I'll fucking blow your heads. I'll blow your brains out in front of your kids. Get your sons down here now. They're going to clean my fucking sidewalk. And the guy called his sons down. Did you do this? And they said, yeah, we did. They cleaned the sidewalk.

And my father's watching. And as they're cleaning, he's going, you want to go in the pool? You want some hamburgers? I put something on the grill. No, no, no, we're okay. But I ended up being best friends with Danny Dugan for the next 10 years. It was a, my father was a lot like De Niro in many of his movies.

Just tough, didn't give a fuck. Anyhow, I took a lot of scenes from that summer, wrote a book, booked it well, great reviews, and it got optioned, and now we're close to getting a development deal to write the screenplay and make it into a film. So the point is I was in Long Island to live with my sister to write the book, but for a year I couldn't get a deal. So I lived in New York, and I had no fucking money.

This is six years ago. And I ended up driving a cab, 12, 14 hours a day on Long Island. And then I needed another job. I worked at Best Buy selling TVs. Now get this, Joey. I'm at Best Buy selling TVs with a fucking blue shirt. Everybody's 22 years old. I'm 49.

and, you know, they have things, they have movies on every TV around. As I'm selling TVs, they got Rocky Balboa playing because Rocky had just come out on DVD. So the movie I'm in is playing, and people are seeing me in a movie with Stallone, and I'm selling them a fucking 55-inch TV. How did that feel?

It was initially horrifying, and then I got a kick out of it, and I had fun with it. And I started putting those DVDs in every TV in the store. And matter of fact, I found other films I was in and put those movies in the screen. And the management said, come on, knock it off. No, it was very humbling, but it was something I had to go through. And the book sold.

I got a nice advance. With that advance, I came back to L.A. And I was able to start my life again with my life and kids. And I started producing a movie, which was a great four-year job, produced a movie called So Be It. out in theaters now. It's a children's book. We turned into a film. So everything happens for a reason. I mean,

when I was driving a cab around the neighborhood I grew up in, but I was writing down scenes in the book. I don't know. It all had to happen. As horrifying as it felt to work 12, 14 hours and come home with $40,

it had to happen. And it worked out for the better. Just going back home to that house. And I'm the guy who left Long Island. I left my little town. I'm the guy that made it. I'm the guy that, oh, A.J. Benza, in my high school, there's nobody else in my high school that, I mean, plenty of guys in my high school are successful in different fields, but no one went to showbiz. So when they saw me, it was, you know, I know some people saw me and they didn't want me to see that they saw me, you know, that that looked like, I don't want him to, I don't want him

because this is a, this is really hurtful that he's here. But I, but I, I did it, you know, and I'd steal, I'd steal toys for my little son. I'd steal these things called Skyland, these little toys that were really expensive at Best Buy, and I'd stuff them in my socks, because I couldn't afford to buy him. I'm glad it happened, but the horrifying thing was, I'm sleeping in the same bed I slept in as a kid. Now I'm with my son, who's two, in a single bed. My wife and my daughter are sleeping in another bedroom in a single bed. Talk about

that was insane. To be back in your fucking bed from childhood after having been in movies and TV shows and you name it

that was really something else. I'm glad it happened. No, and it brought you back. Yeah, it brought you back. It brought me back. The threat to going back. I tell people,

if you ever confused, you're having a hard time, there's just a feeling you get where you know you can't move forward, that means you got to go back the basics. Because it happened to me in 93. And as broke as I was, I finagled a plane ticket

back to Jersey, and I told the guy they'll front me a thousand, 10 milligram Valiums. I'd see him in two days. And I called my buddies in Jersey, so I'm coming with Valiums. At least I had a couple of thousands right off the bathroom. Right. And when I came back a year later, I gave the guy the money.

What happened? I lost your phone number. Ah! Man, that was fucked up. You were a great guy. I was going to send people to go looking for you and I lost your phone number but I went back and I walked around the streets of where I grew up I forced myself to walk I did too walk take that and there was no ferry in those days I took the bus right to Port Authority and I and there was days I worked on a car dealership as a as a salesman on 57th and 12th Avenue all the down by Damassey catwalk and all that

all the car dealerships and I would go over there with just enough money to eat yeah I would have to be in a 10 and I'd have to take the 7th of 3rd clock bus. Yeah. As my friend's dad drove the bus and I would get on the, this is after doing time, coming out, doing something with my life, and then getting divorced. And it took me all the way down to Square Route. But walking in those streets for nine months, even though I was doing blow nine days a week,

no matter what I was doing, I was toughening up and I went to Colorado and here I am. It was because of that little nine months that really put everything into, I went into a I saw Legazamo on stage. It put the process together. I had already started stand up, but I really didn't know what I was doing. I was walking around waiting for Johnny Carson to see me. You know, that's the mistake we make.

We're waiting for the real big guy to see it. I thought somebody was seeing you, and nobody was seeing me. Like, I got to put work into this. Oh, right, right. Now I get it. But there's something interesting that came up. You're 55. Yeah.

When's your birthday? June 2nd. Oh, so you just turned 55. Well, I'm turning 55 in February. February 28th. 19th. Okay. And it's real interesting because I want, most of the people that listen to the show,

demographic is not our age. They're younger. They're very young. You know, Lee's 29, you know. 29. My life didn't start at 30, 2013. It's funny when we watch TV, when we watch old films,

and they don't have cell phones. I know. And we're talking about it in front of Lee or whatever. You know, explain to these people, because people have no fucking idea. I told the story on Comedy Central I had a bunch of rude off a joke I told

on this thing about a guy that I grew up with that was Martin the Fag in Spanish he was my thing of Marico Maricon, sure. Everybody knew who he was he was a hemmed guy that's sewed for a big play in the city and this has got to be 74

yeah yeah 74 because I was 73 10 I went to see the Mets play the fucking Niakees remember the Mets play the Reds in the World Series with Pete Rose beat up Bud Harrelson. And it was about two years after that that he pulled the gun at my mother's bar, Mardiname Marikong.

Really? Because somebody called him Marding Mardi Gong out to his face. It was well known. He was gay, but just don't break his balls. Good for him. And every night he come, his whole thing was he was a seamstress, then he take the bus over the Jersey, take a shower, get an ounce of blow in 20s, and take it to CBGBs and all Oh, yeah, sure, man.

But let me tell you some. I'd see him once or week, and he always had a black eye, a tooth missing. Got the shit be that. Every night, there was some drama. I sat on stage on that, you know, you should thank faggots like Martin

because he was one of the originals. He took the beatings for you, motherfuckers. That's a great line. It's very hard to explain to somebody like Lee how hard it was to be gay in 1975. Oh, my God. There was a very small community. Forget it.

But you didn't accept it. There was a time you couldn't have long hair in the neighborhoods where he came from. Where I came from, when I first moved from New York City, from 88th Street to North Bergen, when I was 12, 10, there was no long hair. I had long hair, it was hard. It was rough. And I was, I'm Sicilian, so I had dark skin.

I was called nigger a lot, a lot. I had fights because I was called nigger. I know this isn't a looks thing, but a few weeks ago, Joe was telling a story about someone was cross-country skiing in their neighborhood, and that just wasn't allowed. And some guy were sitting there and a bus, you know, at a time. First of all, the mindset was this. And it snowed, it's 1983. It snowed two feet of snow.

Right. And those days, it crippled the city. Yeah. We couldn't gamble because there was no daily news. Right. The book only had action on two teams, Brown and St. Lucius of fucking Marta. And the Coke guy was out of service. Yeah.

Because he couldn't get out of his car. So, worse. So for three days, we're scratching like monkeys. Right. And my friend in front of a bar window waiting. for heaven to come down from the skies. He's got like a mug of beer. He's got ESPN on. He's losing.

And I'm sitting next to him. He's by the bar window. And he's looking out, and there's not a car on the street. The streets are ice. Everything is parked. Some cars haven't been moved, three feet of snow on top of him. Right. And we're sitting in, he's in a half of mood. And so he looks out, and there's a fucking dude.

Cross-country ski. All-woman is doing that. And my friend looks, and he goes, what the fuck is that? They don't do it now. No, he goes, what the fuck is that? And he jumped out of his chair and he chased him. And he started to beat the fuck out of him. Then we all kicked him one time, right?

We go back in, we had a janitor in those days from the high school that we were all drunk. They were all drunk to janitors. We waited until he'd get drunk. My God. But he was epileptic. Yeah. So he would have pills on them.

We'd steal the epileptic pills. Nice. Split them in half and we got fucked up. Anything. Now we're fucked up to the gills. Yeah. 3 in the morning and I'm seeing police lights on the wall And I go out and the dude we beat up is in the back of the car with a blanket on shaking

I know I know It's it was it was so tough You know to be gay Like it was so tough I was I mean I look I didn't know what it was so it didn't bother Yeah I just heard Okay so so we when you guys were 10 or 11 13 whatever the age was what did he think of of gay people. Honest to God, I didn't think about them at all.

I grew up with, my house was my mother. My aunt lived with us. My mother, my, my, the other aunt was two doors down and her daughter. My two sisters lived with us. I grew up with all women. So I only heard, my father came on with 10 p.m. ate dinner, had two scotchers and went to bed. I heard female stories all day.

But there was no gay, there were no gay stories. There was nothing like that to kick. around. But when my cousin showed up, you know, my father, it was a phrase, my father would say, when my uncle called and said, I think Gino was grain damage. It was

a very quiet night. It was like 1 o'clock in the morning, and I'm looking out my bedroom door, and I saw my father go to my mother, Larry thinks Gino's Funukia, and he grabbed his ear, he shook his ear. And I don't know what, that was a thing they did back then.

And I don't know what it meant, why you grabbed an ear when someone was gay. And what I, what I deduced is, because gays wore earrings back then, guys, you know, fags wore earrings. Oh, you couldn't wear an earring in my neighborhood. No, so I think that's what I did the ear. I think that's why I did the ear.

And I tell you, when, when they, when my uncle came with his son, and we went on the bowl, we went fishing, the ladies were so concerned, like, how's everything? What happened? You know, is everything again? And, and my father was, it hurt him. It heard him that his brother's son was gay, and he said, my mother said well look you know it's not the worst things in the world my my father I remember he said it's fucking close it's close he got mad like you know I'm a man that's not something a father wants

to go through so this is many many years ago now if my son was gay I would buy him the best makeup I would make sure he had the best fucking clothes it wouldn't bother me I it really wouldn't bother me I swear to God, my son's an athlete. He's a great athlete. I wouldn't bust his balls. I wouldn't go to bed at night and ring my hands. As I got older in life, I just want my kids to be happy. Now, being happy and being gay nowadays is easily achievable.

But in the 70s, it was fucking impossible. You're going to gay fucking killed. When I moved to Jersey, the toughest family in the neighborhood had a kid that was effeminate. And at that time, I knew. But let me tell you a funny story. We called them in theater. You've been to Cuba a couple times. Oh, three times.

I love it. Cuba has a very huge gay society. Sure. Very big prostitution. I know. I enjoyed it. Yeah, Cubans are a haven of debt. But they're also a society that have.

This is, and I've talked about it before, it's an Amacoa society. Ammaquah? It's Santa Ria. I went. I love all. I can see the bracelets. Mingia was crazy. There's a thing that Abakwa.

And they were the long showmans of Cuba. Really? And they were the men of Cuba. They were the Sicilians of Cuba. They were so Sicilian. They couldn't eat pussy. Oh, you're right about that. They couldn't be in another room.

They couldn't be in a room. If Lee was gay, I have to walk out of the room. Nothing against Lee. Then I'm going to say nothing against me. No, but they don't want to be around that. They don't want to be around it. Because of my Santeria roots, there's a lot of gay guys in the Santerian room. And there was one in particular.

That was about eight. And he was partners with my mother in some. invention. Jesus Christ. Good guy. Good guy's to remember. But whenever he would see me, he would scare me.

Yeah. And he would always, he wouldn't say sexual things to me because my mom is in the room. He would always say, to walk ahead. And in some Spanish national, in some Spanish circles, that means I'm gonna fuck you.

Well, one day Juan was there. Juan was Abaqua. One didn't play that shit at all. If it came time to hug him, he would put his hand out and shake the hand. It was embarrassing how Juan acted but he never lashed out of him in fact he always spoke to him my mother's bar he was friends of martin when he heard that that guy say that to me he pulled me inside one day

and he goes don't ever let that motherfucker say that to you again yeah that motherfucker says that to you again right he either knock him out you kick him in the fucking balls right right right shoot him i mean it was it was scary well and the situation came up that he said it and i went off on him in front of my mother my mother got pissed and but uh nice it was such a touchy situation in those days. And I see it now today I have gay friends. I don't care. I don't care at all about it.

That does not bother me. But I'll tell you, my brother-in-law is 70 years, 71 years old. He's been with me since I'm five years old. So he's like my father. And Spanish, Puerto Rican, tough Queens guy, you know. And when his little son Jackie was growing up, you know, we were watching the cabaret. and my sister put him, she put a little rouge on his cheeks,

she put him in a little black dress. It was funny. We just were laughing around the house. My father dressed as Joel Gray from Cabaret and she made her son to look like, kind of like Liza Manelli. He was like, he was three. Well, my brother-in-law saw it.

You would have thought he saw him sucking cock. That's how fucking mad he got. You know, Spanish, Italian, The Latin people, they don't, he, get that fucking dress off my son. His face got red. I know, I'll tell you who was the worst. And if I ever get to meet him,

I'm going to pull him aside and ask him why he put that in his pilot. Oh. And that it was brilliant. The pilot's the empire. Yes, right. Okay, the pilot, the empire, there's a scene in the beginning where the kid comes down with a dress and shoes on. I remember.

The fucking pilot. And he picks him up and puts him in a, Garbage can. And he puts the lid over it. It's a dream of scene. Let me tell you something, guys. My first friend, when I came from Cuba, the mom had a bar on 127th,

and West End there, whatever that street is, right off the West Side. Right up on the Upper West Side. It was a black ball. Right. But it was numbers. My mother's partnership was numbers with the dude.

But I would go in there, and I became friends, and I became friends in a little blanket. The kid was my Gumba. We ran around, and went on, we bought James Brown records. He took me to the prize. I love it.

He took me to the projects and I ate with his family. It's great. There was sometimes my mom let me sleep over on Saturdays, and they picked me up on Sundays. And I still remember 1968, like it was yesterday, the father in that house going off about the brother-in-law was gay. Well, you know when I'm in this fucking motherfucker, I don't want no motherfucking gay nigger, my motherfucker-in-law.

No, I know. He would say shit, and I was five, and I was scared him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I would go home and ask my mom, mom. My mom didn't really know the whole Cuban, she didn't know the American translation. So go to bed. But it was all about their brother-in-law being gay,

like the wife's brother. And I don't know if we were there on a Saturday night. And he embarrassed the guy in front of us. And then he told the wife one time when I was there eating, I don't want to admit to you when I'm eating because he's going to ruin my motherfucker on appetite. Shit like that. I still remember being fired. been going, wow.

Yeah. There's hatred for that man. And finally, years later, I figured out why the guy was fucking gay. That was the biggest hate I ever saw in my life for gay, was the black. That's why years ago when they said they're going to put gay players in the NBA, good luck. Oh, forget about it. No way. Good luck.

Yeah. Gay players in the NFL, good luck. Well, they're in there. They're in there. They're in there. But they're in the closet big because they know that they're the, listen, that thing with Ricky Jackson. And I heard it was about somebody went upstairs and said, well, he didn't think Ricky goes on both sides of the fence.

They had to ship him out two days later. Ricky Williams? Ricky, the guy from New Orleans? The running back? Yeah, yeah. The weeds smoked. Yeah, he's got that vibe. I could see that.

They said that one. That was one of them. He was in New Orleans. I could see that. That was one of the rumors. And then they shipped him right down to Miami. I could see that. He seemed like someone who was just like, he was a hippie.

He was a hippie. He just, whoever, whatever so he connects with. He didn't give a fuck about money. Yeah, I could see that. He had no use for money. He's married now and he's got a kid, but people still say it was a... That don't matter. That don't matter.

You know what I guarantee? He got high one night and went home with a guy in the car. Gay for a day. Two beers and a shove, man. Are you kidding me? I guarantee he swaps bit with some guy or something. Listen, I got a gay friend. I got a gay friend who tells me, we laugh.

He says to me, you know how many guys, two beers in a shove, and they'll take a shot at the other team. And he says to me, and I've seen... I know stories from him. He was the Andy Warhol crew. He's got great stories about people we know now that have experimented. But that happens a lot. That happens a lot in show business.

My God, I'm not going to mention names, obviously, but my God, does that happen a lot? You know, hey, hey, how do you feel? You know, like James Franco, is a guy like that. A lot of guys go, I don't want to go through life with one hand tie behind my back. You know, I'm not, nowadays, everything's about being gender fluid. And, hey, you know, I'm not going to put down what this guy does. You know, hey, you know, actors are great like that. But the American public, the vast majority of the movie going public, doesn't want to know that.

They're not ready for that. I'm not ready for that. You can't tell a guy in Illinois, James Franco sucked a cock once to try. When I used to come home from my gossip rounds, I lived in the West Village. I lived in the gayest building. I was in the meatpacking district Horatio and Washington I mean and I had three Yorkies

so people thought that I must have been you know playing on both sides but I come home 4 o'clock in the morning and I'd see all the transvestites there and I went around a couple nights with remember Albee Shaw come on yeah so Alby and I would drive I love to

because he loved to fight night and day and Alby loved to fight when we would go to nightclubs if there was any shit he would jump right off of me and we'd fight guys And one night we'll drive around this range rover And he goes I'll drive you home

I'll drive you home He's all right He goes watch this And my area It was all trannies And he stops the car With a bunch of trannies And he likes

He puts down his His dark window And he goes Hey babe What's going on And this tranny goes Oh my God I'll be sure

What the fuck Oh my God Now five other trannies Come And he puts the window up And we drive off and they're running after us. He liked that. He liked having that kind of

that kind of relationship or that kind of fun with the tranny crap. And when I get home from my rounds, there was a couple, there was one girl named Coco, who I'd see her at the fucking deli downstairs, putting makeup on and the mirror, right? And she would tell me, hey, AJ, Mike Tyson was here tonight, Arsinio was here tonight, Eddie Murphy came tonight, they're up in a limousine, they're up in

limousine, stop it off seeing the girls. I'm like, you're full of shit. She goes, I ain't lying. And now you look back, I completely believe it. Eddie Murphy, come on, getting pulled all around sunset, taking that tranny home. Arsenio Hall, can you

sit in that right down here and tell me unequivocally he's straight? You can't. Mike Tyson? I think he likes anything. Mike Tyson? No, I'm not saying. No, no, no. I love Mike. I just was with him last week. But I'm saying, When you're that sexual, I think Mike is one of those guys that has taken a shot with everybody.

I really think that. I think if a guys in the room of Mike Tyson was fucked up on Coke like he was getting, and some dudes said, I'll suck your dick, Mike would let him. Richard Pryor, like guys suckers. That's the thing when I said earlier, I don't want to know who anyone's fucking. Like, this is, that's crazy. That's a great man. Listen, I remember working on the Best Danceport Show, and one of the girls in the wardrobe or something was black.

and we became friends. Nothing, I'm not, nothing like that. We're just on the set. She was a fan of stand-up. Yeah. And one night she was explaining to me about the whole Eddie Murphy thing.

And guys, I was blown the fuck away. Well, look at his, look at his wife. His wife looks like a man. The ex-wife, Nicole. My fucking film idol. Yeah, no, no kid. Forty-eight hours and trading places.

Come on. Now, it wouldn't make a difference to me. I don't give a- Exactly. I don't care. I always knew Judas Priest's singer was gay. I knew when I was fucking 19, 17, I knew this guy jumped the fence. It didn't make a difference to me.

It never did. My mother didn't raise me at all. Yeah, I don't care even. I don't care. I'm just intrigued by it. I wasn't even intrigued by it. I just didn't. I was more blown away.

Like when they said Eddie Murphy and then I remember going home that night, not saying a word and not like, I don't know what the fuck Eddie Murphy. He sold it. Yeah, he did. And I saw him at the comedies, though, and everything went away. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, everything went away. He was dressed, who he was with.

Right, I used to see, yeah. And then I saw Banks, Richard Prysoe manager one night. And he goes, Cuba, watch. Watch me fuck with these motherfuckers. There was Eddie Arsenio, the singer from Boston. Oh, yeah? What's the guy's name? I don't know his name.

Come on. The singer from. I don't know the lead to singer from Boston. Who was Bobby Brown? What band was Bobby fucking Boston? Browning. First edition. First edition. Who's in first edition? Get the five characters

in first edition. I can't think of their names. I know. I know. Who's the most, the singer. The black singer, really good-looking. I can't Google Black Singer. No, Google fucking. No, there's a lot of them. New edition. New edition. New edition. New edition. New edition. Just new edition. Just the band, new edition.

Bobby Brown. Johnny Gill. Gil. Guy. Gil. Big time. There you go. No doubt. It was Eddie Murphy. He lived in Gary's guesthouse. Johnny Gill, Arsenio Hall, and Paul Moody. Okay, they're sitting by the Comedy Store sign.

And Banks walks up to me and Rogue and maybe somebody else. He goes, hey, watch me fuck with these motherfuckers. And he goes up and he goes, hey, what are you guys going to do? The Queens of Comedy Tour. Like right to their faces. And they say nothing to him. And as soon as somebody, Johnny Gill walked away, Charlie, Eddie Murphy, like, just nickel for him.

Really? And he came over. Again, if you listen to this, doesn't bother me at all. I don't let you know the shit. We see. Yeah, I see. Listen, it doesn't know.

And Johnny Gill lived in Eddie's guest house for a while. And I'm a big fan, Eddie Murphy still. Love him. Let me tell you, Eddie Murphy used to come in and tip my wife a yardstick for three waters. Really? That's great. Two yard sticks.

Any waiters who weighed out of a yardstick? Those guys are the best. And one that my wife gave him two orders. came in there with Johnny Gill, and my wife said I was walking to Pink Dot to the car, and I heard the car beat, and it was Eddie and Johnny Gil, they pulled the door, and he goes, I forgot to give you this. That's a stand-up fucking guy. And ever since I love Eddie Murphy.

Yeah, that's great stuff. And that's the funny thing. My wife will tell you. My wife will tell you. Yeah, my wife will tell you. It's a funny thing about the negative responses you got to that story about Martin, because, yes, you said the word faggot, but it was a very positive story. No, and this is what happened.

He did something, you know, I came from a macho society. Yeah, Cuban macho society. Not to mention, like I tell people, I grew up in North Bergen, New Jersey. This is really weird, and I didn't know this for sure, but I always knew I thought a little fucking crazy. I grew up in North Bergen, New Jersey. When I moved there, it was an Italian Irish cesspool. Right, right. But it was Italians that had moved on up from Hoboken.

Yeah. And then I watched the Sinatra documentary how those Italians were not allowed because there were Italians and the Irish were fucking with them. They weren't a lot above 9th Street in the 40s. So these kids' parents that I was talking to, like Ascalis, for example, I would go to the house in the summer and eat and she would say, let me tell you, how much are you paying for that concert? Twenty-two. Let me tell you who I've seen for $3 at St. Rockles. I saw her. I saw San Marcos. I saw San Francisco. I saw a lot. I saw a lot. I saw a concert. I was going to pay for that concert. I was $22. I was $2. I was. I was. I was. I was Sinatra. This guy. And I had money for Chinese food. And we would talk like that. She would go listen to. Because she was from the city. And she would go, I would go to those dances.

Because I would talk to Sinatra. Yeah. The mother. Right, right. The whole fucking thing. Everybody knew everybody. I know for $2. Yeah, yeah.

It's all those people from Hoboken moved to North Bergen. So I always tell people, I'm from North Bergen. But I got, when my mother died, who took me in, Sicilians from Hoboken? Who was the baby's godfather? It's just really a Hoboken. Who's, they're all from Hoboken. And we all, you know, like I tell people, I can't sing. I got one thing from Hoboken balls.

I don't give a fuck. That's great. I came out here to swing. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Like Sinatra, the swing. And it's just really weird that people, I always want people to understand, like, you got to stick up for yourself. And these two dudes said to him one day, I mean, I can't talk, they were drinking.

They were both bookies. one guy's name was Anandu and his brother was Umberto. And Umberto had a regular job but Arnado was the bookmaker that belonged to the bar. Right. From 10 to 3 to 10 to 5 he sat at that stool. Yeah.

From 10 to 3 he took numbers. At 3 the number took off. But if you wanted to give him action for the next day, he'd stay there until 5. But they'd get their drink on. And when they got their drink on, Martin was going into the city to sell coke. He came in.

It was, because around the corner from my mom's bar was the last, bus stop to take to New York City. It was in front of a post office coming out of the Union City of New Jersey. Mixed we hawking, they called it. I know we're walking, sure. Right out of a tunnel. Right out of a tunnel. So Martin

came in and I was playing that stupid game. Maybe that stupid game that was bowling pins and you had a metal puck and they had sawdust and you threw it in the 70s. I'm playing this game. Lee, this is unimaginable to you. It's like a shuffleboard type of thing. It's like a shuffleboard type of thing. And I'm playing this game, but Martin's where

you are. And the bookies are where he is. So he says, And there was like a minute of calmness and then Martine went on his back and pulled down like a 38 and he goes, oh yeah, let me tell you something.

Unless I sucked your dick or you suck my dick, then you call me Martin Martin, Marikol. Until then, you call me Martin. And my mom's yelling at Martin to put the gun down, Coco is right behind you, because she knew Umberto packed. Yeah. Coco's right behind you. Don't get

this shit off in the bar right now. You're going to get hit. You're going to get hit. Jose Antonio. Oh, yeah? So, Antonio, what's that I eat? I froze. I was right there and he's like Nunca, Intuidoa. I call me a faggot again. And then my mother said to him

again, Martin, Coco's there. And he goes, Coco needs to see this. Don't have a I called me a faggin again, and my mom started yelling him. Get the fuck out. You're not allowed in here again, Martin. I don't care how long I'd love you. Get the fuck out.

He pulled the gun out, disappeared. I was just shocked. They said something to each other. I never thought about it again. Three days later, there was a knock on my door. I opened it up. It was Martin. He goes, I really apologize for taking the gun on front of you.

My mom won't let me in the bar unless I apologize to you. I go, Martin, are you fucking kidding me? That's great. You're my personal Charles Johnson. Right. I fucked Charles Varton. You are the king. What you did your day in front of me?

That is great. You blew every circuit in my mind. Now, when I was like six, I saw my stepdad beat up a guy in the Bronx for hitting a dog. You know, Cubans, old Cubans. In fact, today's St. Lazaro's birthday. December 17th, I stayed up last night. A little purple candle. Oh, nice.

Yeah, today's December 17th. Today's don't hit a dog day. Oh, it's great. Because in a year from now, you'll be in fucking crutches. saying, oh, you'll have leprosy. That's awesome. So he hit a guy for that. That's big in Cuba, not hitting the dog.

And then one time at a Santa Rio party, he shot a guy in the leg on 148th of Broadway. And then we got in the, he threw a gun, it was right, Broadway goes down into Riverside Drive in those days. Right by there, there was a park. I never forget, we ran up 147 because 148 came uptown, came up the hill 147 went down

he parked on like 147th and Broadway we made a right we drove a couple blocks he goes wait right here took the gun to the Hudson we drove home he never said anything again never said anything again so that I already seen the real deal but what he did that afternoon

at 4 the afternoon fucking great it blew me away so I always loved the guy until I robbed the blade You know, he was dealing tremendous cocaine. What are you going to do? I had to take that out for something. But, no.

And he still loved him. I loved him to death. But business is business, yeah. No, no, no. I fucked up. As a kid, I fucked up. I was stupid and greedy. But I never, but it's funny that you said something because I have a video on YouTube

that people were really getting pissed at me over the years. What happened? But I just miss said the words. What did you say? When we were kids, we used to go to Boulevard East. Yeah. 16, 17, 18, we used to go to Boulevard East and mug dudes that were coming,

that would get drunk in the city, and we'd go overlooking for a guy that sucked their dick. Oh, wow. And went on the street with guys would stand by Boulevard East by suicide bridge. Really? If you wanted to get your dick sucked. After a while, we just started hanging out there,

and we'd make guys pull over, got out of the car, we'll suck your dick under the tree. Wow. And then we'd jump you. I said fag, but I shouldn't have said the way. I know what you mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Nine out of ten of those guys were guys that were probably married.

Right. I just wanted to fix that by that. Sure, sure. Yeah, I had a buddy who, it wasn't my scene. I wasn't, I didn't do coke as a kid. I didn't do coke until, I did coke in college. I got out of college. My father died when I was 21.

And when I got out of cup, one of my buddies came back from college and he had coke and a tinfo rap. I said, what is this? You got to try it's coke. I said, no. Mike. What year is this? This is 1980. I was 21, so I was born in 62. You know, 83, 82, 81 like that.

81. And I said, nah. It was still fucking delicious. No, it was great. I tried it. I said, look, my fucking throat closed up. My father just died. My father was an undercover narc agent. So I just, I had a bad feeling about it. My throat closed up. Naturally, an hour later, I loved it. And I loved it. And then I did new Coke again. I just said, now I'm done. I got married young. first wife. My bachelor party, of course, we did coke. I had in

1980s wedding, so forget about it. All my ushers have fucking coke. They fucking had bloody noses. Please. I have the pictures with the white shirts with the red spots. No coke again. And in like in 1990, I don't know, four, five, seven, six, 1996.

My nephew was in college and he goes, me and my buddy want to try cocaine. And I said, oh, you're not going to try it. I'm going to try. No, you're going to do it with me. I don't want you going to going some jerk off and get some bear. I'll get this stuff. I know who to get it from. And I did it with them, and then I got hooked. I didn't, like in my 20s, I could just drop it and didn't care about it.

But in my 30s, that's what's so fucked up about that drug. You don't know. In my 30s, I couldn't get enough of it. So for a long time, it was like, I did it constantly. Whenever I could, I had plenty of money, plenty of time. I wasn't, I was working like two days out of 10. I'd film a few shows, and then I was off forever. So it was easy.

I was home, and it's so weird. And then it became a problem for me. But, yeah, that's a fucking weird. But my buddy, he got so crazy with it that he would go try to cop some crack. And this is what he did. He told some guys who were driving around with crack. I want to see what you got. And he'd drive with the car, and he'd say, I want to cop.

And they'd show him the crack in their hands. and he fucking hit them with a hammer and the crack would fall. He grabbed the crack and he drove off. So he did this like five or six times. He got a bunch of crack. The word got out. He got guys with waltz on their head

the size of golf balls. It was a small hammer, but fuck, you know, you go down. So that was his big ploy for a while. Hitting big guys in the head with a hammer for crack. It's quite a ploy. But he got, he went to jail and got lit on fire.

He's dead. Fucking guy. Glenn. Glenn Edgeridge. He got lit on fucking. fire. Oh my God. Evil. Evil drug. Tony better, buddy.

You know, this is the song my mother sang to me because she thought I was treating girls wrong. She said, I want to be around. She'd sing it to me. Who the fucking think you're dealing with a trooper? I was like, you're kidding me, my. Stop. I want to be around to pick up the pieces.

Got anything like this in there? Anything kind of drink? Nothing. Something. A beer. Oh, yeah. me a shot of that in the beer, we're good. Hitting me with gold. I'll go with them. The Gitos?

Citos? I don't want to sip out of the bottle like a fucking, but I'll do it. Give me a cup and a beer and a fridge, buddy. A cup and a beer and with gold. That's all. That'll make the show a hit.

Get it about it. I don't. All right, this is you here. That's good good That misery Love's company Yeah, then I'll fucking go off Wait and see

Can I just give that over here? I know, we're on the camera Sponsed by Titos No, no, it's fine, it's right here I'd love to be sponsored by Tinos Oh, I thought you wanted it off the table completely No, it did not Give me a beer, please

Next I'm gonna tell you to take the fucking sausage out It's so good Let's see You have a thing on here I'm sorry to bother me. You have an opener on your tray. Oh, here it is. I got it.

This is perfect. Here you go. That's where now this guy. What a... You fucking nuts or what? Some guy just got lit on fire. We had to take a breather for a second. Couldn't help it.

No, no, let me do some shoutouts real quick. Before we go deep in the murky water's here. Rodding Float Tech, Kubei Kenko, Nick Marquez, basement monsters. Norm not a problem Woker Mark Dog Josiah Gonzalez Walker Pierce

and the mini-prud. I love you cock suckers. You want dates? I ain't got no fucking dates, all right? That's how we're doing it. AJ Benz is still on here. That is fucking hysterical. Yeah, fine.

Yeah, his brother was my best friend. He was in that of the joint. Ronnie. Ronnie was the bat. Ronnie, when I hear you, now I know you for years. but I just, because I started my podcast six months ago, I've been to podcast now,

and I started listening to yours, and you sound just like the guys I grew up with, except you sound exactly like my buddy Ronnie Maselli, in and out of the joint, the funniest fucking guy in the world. We're friends since for six years old. He's down in Florida now. Of course, where everybody goes

when they got to fucking run away from shit. You're like him. You're like a lot of guys that grew up. My cousin Phil, was a building inspector. You got all that stuff. So when I listen to you talk, I get so into it because I feel like I'm listening

to my buddies. It's the best. I love it. So you went to college where? CW. Post out Long Island. To be a writer? I went for journalism. Yeah, I came out and

I didn't want to go to fucking, you know, Ohio to be a reporter or Alabama. Normally you've got to leave New York to get into a newspaper job. I said, I'm not leaving. I can't leave. I can't. I could never leave my mother and father. and I got a part-time job at Newsday,

which was a big newspaper on Long Island, big, like top fucking five in the country. And I was doing high school and college sports. And that was nice. I go to games, write the fucking highlights. I enjoyed that. I like being around sports. And I wanted to be a full-time writer.

It wasn't happening. And then eventually, after like five, six years, one night, this is great. I got divorced. I got divorced. I had a little money. and I sold my house and I said I'm going to go to

fucking New York was Vogue Magazine's 100th birthday party at the fucking some museum in Manhattan and I didn't know anybody I said I'm going I'm going

so I fucking go to New York I try to get through everybody's there velvet ropes you name it Bob Wyatt it was no way I was going to get in and as I'm trying to get in Mickey Rock gets thrown out

and I love Mickey Pope of Greenwich Village I still have the tattoo and my nickname is Pope for fucking 30 years because of that movie. So he gets thrown out and it was like I couldn't make this up. He turns around and looks at me

and he goes, where are you going? I said, I don't know. I couldn't even speak to him. He's Mickey Rourke. He goes, get in the car, we're going to go downtown. Just like that. He didn't know me from Adam. I get in a black town car. His buddy's driving.

He's got Bob Dylan on, knock, knock, knocking on Heaven's door. Mickey's getting high. We're going downtown. We ended up a place called Rex downtown. And he says, don't worry. In two hours, the whole fucking party is going to be here. Two hours later, Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Claudia's ship. Every girl you can imagine walks in.

They're all over Mickey. Mickey is and that. And I saw shit that night. I saw Cindy Crawford making out with chicks. I saw girls putting their hands down Mickey's pants. Insanity. And I'm a guy who was just married for five years on Long Island, putting up fucking wallpaper with my wife going to Home Depot.

on the weekends. I was a regular guy. And I said, Jesus Christ. So the next day I called a gossip columnist at New York Newsday, and I said, you know, I work a Newsday in the sports, but I said, I was out last night. I got a couple of tips for you. I saw, I told her what happened. She goes, wow, don't you go out for me every few nights? I'll give you 50 bucks a night. Just bring stories back. I said, all right. So I started hitting Manhattan. I knew nobody. What year is this? This is 1991. I knew nobody. And I'd wait there by the Velvet a rope like an asshole. I'd wait there. And I had a little bit of money. I was doing

something. You remember the tout services where you call gamblers would pay? Where'd you play for? Mike Duffy? I knew Mike. No, I was with Stu Feinner. Stu raised me on that. Where is Stu? Stoo? Stoo is in Long Island. Still doing it on the internet. God bless him. You go to Instagram and look at Stu Fonnie. He's out of his fucking mind. Still. Love him. I just saw him not too long. I love the guy.

He's an animal. He taught me and I worked for a major wageer, profit line. Curtis who? Curtis Sloat. Yeah, I remember that name, but I didn't work from now. Yeah, that's who I worked for. The captain. I worked for Curtis.

You did. In Colorado. Oh, wow. This is 91. Okay. So I worked for Curtis in Colorado and Stu Feiner would come out. And what happened was that I worked for them for two football seasons. I was terrible.

But they had to pay me the second season, because they're competitive. One of their guys quit that they grew up with because all those hot guys are grown up together. I know. I tell that story all the time.

Lee, they were Jewish. The Sloats. Him, his brother, and his mother did this in the basement by themselves. They taught me how to sell. They taught me how to close those guys. They made $700,000 in the basement.

No bullshit. The first football season ever. Yeah. The mother and the two sons did in the basement. The guy, your guy, told them how to do it and send them leads.

Stu. It's amazing the business How much did the guy get? Here's the way it works. The way it works is you get leads. We used to get the list of names from casinos in Vegas or Atlantic City of guys who gambled. And then you cold called them and you say how the game's treating you, whatever the fuck. You use a different name.

And back then, they could pay you through Western Union, through Visa MasterCard. Listen, grab the fucking card. I'm going to $2 a lot. You're going to sit there betting what, $200 a game like a moot that you are? I'm telling you, hold on one second I just did a line of fucking Coke I just got from the fucking Colombian Listen to me

I'm gonna go out to that with this Chinese girl She's gonna suck fucking my balls While she does a bump a Coke And you're gonna sit in your little fucking apartment In the Bronx Fucking wishing that you want Now one of your bets is opposite mine I have a fucking card

I'm going two and oh Forget about two and oh Let's bang one in for 10 G's right now As a matter of fact Put me on hold Go in your mother's room Get the fucking phone grab that phone and call the book

and see how much you can put in there right now I'll fucking hold right now that way it was good I guarantee you you won't be fucking sorry what I'm asking you for a measly 300 you miserable I'm embarrassing myself I'll never forget one night

because the first season I did he fired me because I was just doing blow yeah everybody did love that bacon egg and cheese sandwiches blow and beer I was just making so much three hours a night we were I was half my check

was going to the attorney. I was a divorce. Horrible. And the other half, I had the pork in on the yard. So he came to me, he goes, listen, Kurt's going to do, Stu's going to do the show on Friday nights. Come in. I want my guys to come in. I want you to come in. You can make a couple hundred

just coming on Friday nights from 6 to 12. Yeah. And I would go there. The guy would stop by 11, dropped the package off. It was great. So he let me go in January. He goes, Joey, I can't have. You're at the desk with a paper, you know. Now, you were, I wasn't doing, I was there.

I did a few bumps here and there, but they were guys who were the same. I did really well, and I quit because of the football season ending. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Football was the big one. And then I moved to Seattle, and I bought a sports magazine. I go, he did it on his fucking desk. No, listen. You did it alone?

I did it out of my house, and I did it too. I did it too. I called one of their friends. But the phone bill gets higher. No, at that time, it was $1,800 was for free. Oh, okay. I cut a deal with $1,800 coming in was for free, and I would call you back. And let me tell you a really funny story.

fucking, I did it and I called one of Kurt's friends and as I was talking to him I knew Kurt telling me a story about this Greek guy and he goes, what are you want to do? I'm looking to buy leads I want to call call people out of here. He goes, who did you work

for before when I told him? And that night I'm sitting there watching TV and I'm like here, the clone going on up. Yeah. And Stu find the threatening me. You motherfucker, next time I see him, I'm going to fucking show you. So listen, this fucking guy, I'm with Stu and a big guy named Andy Carp.

He paid 550 fucking pounds. Forget about it. So we're making calls. And I was good at it. One day I hooked into a guy named Paul Hicks. He was a fucking stock broker in Colorado, but Loveland Colorado. But he was into all sorts of shit.

He was fucking betting a lot of money. And out of nowhere, Stu says to me, tell me you're going, I'm 21. Tell me you're going to Vegas. And you're taking your five best car. customers. Everybody's giving you $60,000. You're going to turn it into $250,000. I'm like, is this going to fucking work? He says, do it. I can pull all this and I'm going to Vegas,

bye, bye, bye, tell him the whole scan. I says, you can meet me out there. I'll turn the money around. I'll give you four or five times on your investment. Just, okay, my name was Johnny Roak. I used Johnny Roak. I use Frankie Nolan, Eddie Grant. He's just, okay, Johnny, I'll be out there. So we go, we fly into Vegas. I'm with my buddy. Mitch was a big co-kehead. Clearing a limousine. I'm waiting at the airport. He looks like Richard Dreyfus. He's coming in his pants

for too long. His heels was hitting the fucking back of his suit. And he has a briefcase in his hand. He gets in the limousine. And we're going to Caesar's Palace. And we're talking. We get in the room. I open the briefcase and I'm counting the money. I'm looking for 60 grand. And he's talking to Mitch. And I go, I said, you know, Mitch is

a black belt in Kung Fu and Taekwondo, all that shit. And I just made it up and Paul goes, oh, I'm a black belt as well. What form do you use? Mitch wasn't a black belt. Mitch goes, I don't want to talk about it. I killed a man five years ago. It's very, I can't talk about it. I said, Paul, I'm counting the money. You're short

$3,800. Oh, I'm sorry, Johnny. He's pulling money out of his fucking top, shirt pocket, his fucking pants, his underwear. Okay, good. I said, go home, relax. I got it from here. Naturally, all he did is get Coke, get girls fucking gamble. We lost 60 grand

and two days gone. So I call Steele. I said, you know, he says, go him back, get another 20. I says, all right. So I called Paul. He says, hey, Johnny, how did it go? I said, not good. Oh, really? I said,

I need 20,000 more. Well, Johnny, I said, Paul, I got the game, Yankees, Toronto, Blue Jays. I know exactly what's going on. We got an some player on our side. Do me a fucking favor. He's calling balls and strikes.

Don't be a fucking asshole. This isn't a gold mine. This is the game. Get the 20,000. Okay, Johnny. He sends it over. But at that point, I just took the 20 and left. I wasn't going to fuck around.

So I told Stu, we lost it, blah, blah, blah. I left. But the point is, I had money in my pocket. And we did so well that we had a TV show that was actually on ESPN for a while. It was called Football Forecast. and it was four of us from different sports agencies were the host and we'd give out fucking art picks

we couldn't mention the spread but we say, I think the Giants should win by at least six tomorrow and blah blah and people would see the show and call in and the phones would fucking light up. The money was, I got a guy named Carl Mosack who was an owner of half owner of the Charlotte Bobcats back then he had irrigation systems in the Carolinas.

The guy was filthy, fucking rich. We called him the elephant. The guy would bet 50, 60, 80,000 dollars a night and I hooked him up with John Gotti's operation. That's how the whole me and Gotti thing happened because his bookie died. And I couldn't afford to have him with no bookie. So I said, I can find a guy here. So I called my cousin Albert, who was hooked up working for John. I said, I need a guy. I got a guy here. He's betting fucking, he goes,

do you vouch for him? Now, I didn't understand. that term vouched for him back then. I said, yeah, the guy's fucking loaded. I vouched for him. He says, AJ, you vouch for him, it's important. I said, Albert, I vouch for him. So, we're gambling. The guy's winning. He's losing. He's paying. He's getting paid. And suddenly, after the third week,

this is the kind of guy who had like a half a million dollars rolling on a fucking night in college basketball. He'd bet Creighton versus Drake. Like the worst teams, he would bet. And long story short, he fell out. He was down like $48,000 and he had to pay. I says, I said, listen, Carl, you can't fuck around. This is not your booking in Nebraska.

This is a big fucking guy. I know, I know, Johnny, I'll pay. He sends $500, which is an insult to anybody that's running a house, let alone Gotti. It's Thanksgiving time. John Gotti calls my house Thanksgiving during dinner and says, hey, listen, to me. He goes, listen to me. Your friend? No good. He says, this is 1985 now. He says, he's in Colorado. I'm going to send you and I'll and Albert to Colorado, not to learn how to ski to get my fucking money. Do you understand me? I says, okay, okay. And he said the best line. He goes, in a business with no ethics,

we got to have ethics. That's what he said to me. I said, okay, okay. He hangs up. I said, Albert, the fuck's block. He said, AJ, get that fucking money. The guy, I could never find the guy again. Now, this is Thanksgiving. If you remember, December 14th, whatever it was, 85, Gotti and company wax Castellano in front of Spark State House. He becomes Godfather.

And apparently everything changed in his life. He didn't care about the debt. He didn't care about that money that my guy owed him. And it went away. It went away. So, I ended up knowing John because of that. He broke my balls because of that. John was a big gambler.

John was a big bad gambler. God, he was the worst. He said I'd bet against two cockroaches running across the street. I don't give a fuck. I'm not, you know. But those, so I had money. So when I went to that party,

when Mickey was there, I was running around, throwing dollars around. And long story short, Mickey, we went to the party at Rex. The chick showed up. I told that gossip columnist, So I started going out and seeing shit. And in time, the woman who hired me got hired by the New York Daily News and she took me with her.

And she goes, how much money do you want to make? Mort Zuckerman bought the news and he's bringing me over. He wants me to, I said, I want you. What do you want to make? I said, I don't know. I had no clue. I don't know. I said, 60, 70,000?

She goes, done. No problem. I should ask for 100. So I came in at 60 or whatever the fuck, 65. And then back in the 90s, it was so different. I would get raises like every eight months. I would walk in. Our page was so good.

We were breaking such big stories that I would walk in. And she'd tell me, go ask for more money, get more money. I'd say, really? She was going there and get more money. And I'd walk in and say, I broke this story, that story, this story. Okay, I said, I think I should make 90 now. and I'd make 90 this went on for two years

to the point where I was making I was making a 200 and change as a gossip column with all my meals paid for all my drinks paid for all my flights paid for I was flying high

and I remember being a regular kid in the city I'm working in Manhattan in 84 and 85 and that would go out four nights a week. And I can't sit here

because I was coked up and fucking quite looted up. I was pilled up. I didn't do coke back then. But I remember certain situations that if you, if you would, and I know you, you were a slick dude. You also had five dudes helping you up. You had a guy at Arya.

Yeah, you know what I'm saying? You had a guy at the garden. You have to. You had a guy at the black club. Of course. You had a guy at the shrimp club. Sok it. You had a guy in Jersey. And whatever. Always. Always. There's a looted. Always.

Just to see who would show up. And the guy would call you and go, you're not going to believe we just walked in. Brad Pitt with a blonde with a wig on. And there you go. That's how you work. Scores was the big mech, the big mecca back then.

I remember one thing. I still remember one of the craziest things. Like, I remember going out one night and seeing Richard Gere, no big fucking deal. But the craziest man ever when that was in 84. And I saw your boy, Mickey. No. Oh, boy.

I know you miss me I know you miss me I know you Coach you call I saw boy George I know boy George I'm heroin out Dancing with a wall

And those days There was no fucking cell phones Yeah it was the best Memory there was no cell phones Nothing And you can walk into a club And see three people

On a table Drinking drinks Forget about With a mirror with cocaine Yeah right there Right there I mean Forget

That would not have like a cat. No, guys walked in a club of guns. They put the gun. It's fucking crazy. Get it. I used to see, oh my God, I would go to regular. I was never a city in that life. I was a northern New Jersey guy.

Listen, if I could save a hundred bucks to snore an extra gram, that's what I did. I'm going to go to the city to start the same fucking gram. Yeah. To pay, boom, boom, boom, and you're fucking here. And the toll. Some nights I go over to the rooftop, some nights I go over to the area.

You know, and then I got a job at the Sheridan on the 50 seconds. And you get out at one. So you're already out at one. You stole a yardstick. Yeah, of course. You made two yardsticks. You're in the middle of the city. At 1 a.m. in 1985.

That money's gone. That money's gone. That money is gonely. You catch a fucking, you get a cab downtown. You already got a package on you. You would just walk into a bar and there's fucking things going on. But how great was that? The fact that you, to this day,

When I go to New York and I land that I'm in Manhattan, especially downtown, I remember, I had a Mercedes 500 S. I fucking, I was the, okay, I was the man because of my job. And I had a fucking superwoman girl friend. Everybody's got to be. Oh, yeah. All the restaurants picked up your check. I didn't pay a fucking don't. Nothing.

You were the Lawrence Taylor, I didn't even know it. Listen, I took Lawrence's girl. I remember taking Randall Cunningham's wife to China Club. And fucking Lawrence Taylor going, you're the fucking man, nigger. Because this is like, you know, when Randall Cunningham was the man and Lawrence Taylor was the... I was dating downtown Julie Brown when Lawrence Taylor was kind of dating her wanting to get in there. Oh, it was... The scene back then was...

The palladium, right? It was the... Pladium, limelight. There was so many places to go and be seen. So I was plugged into all of it. All of it. And everybody would call me. And when you were a gossip columnist,

they're a publicist, and they're all fucking cute. They're all hot. They all wore black clothes, and they all want their clients in the paper, and they all want their, they represent a shoe store on West Broadway. They went, and I would just sit there.

I would go to Spy Bar, which was on Green Street, which was the hottest fucking spot in the 90s. And I had a buddy named Johnny Boy Calvani, who is 67. maybe. Big pothead. And he had an old Mercedes. I had a new one. We'd drive around and they would move the fucking cones. We'd park in front of the club, which is that little things like that means so much.

When you can just roll up to the club and they just let you park in front of the club and you toss the keys to the guy and he would say, I don't care what you do the rest of your life. When you get older, you're going to remember they fucking move the cones for us on West Broadway. And you said earlier, he was. Lee was doing a bomb. You said, this is the shit that killed Castro.

Johnny would say, this is the shit that killed Bruce Lee. That was his line. And Johnny would say, we'd sit at the piano at Spy Bar, which is like about five feet above the crowd. And Johnny would say to me,

you know what? He goes, if you were up in space and you look down on Earth, and you look down on America, and in America, you look down in New York City, and in New York City,

you look down in Greenwich Village and in Greenwich Village you were in Spring Street and Spring Street you found Spy Bar and in Spy Bar you found the fucking piano you'd find us buddy he'd say we're the fucking kings of the world

and back then as stupid as it sounds that was true to be at the piano at Spy Bar in the 90s with everybody running around fucking insane we were kings kings of the city Well, after that talk, we just had, what are the people around?

Do you think when you said you were going to be a gossip columnist? It's a very powerful position, and you have people around town, and the reason why my podcast kind of took off the last few, the last seven, eight weeks, is because I was a really good friend, and I still am, of Harvey Weinstein's. And I am. I love the guy. I love the guy, and I talk to him all the time. I talked to him all the time.

and he was mad at me I was in the New York Times article and there's a picture in me but the point is it was all that free Harvey are right no well listen no no no no free Harvey

no no no free Harvey I'm just saying I love Harvey he did some bad shit and we'll see what he's guilty of however that motherfucker put out the best fucking movies you could think of and I know that things sound awful

and I don't want to disagree with the girls who said what happened happened. I don't think a lot of girls lie. But I will say this. For every girl who got molested or raped, I think there are five others who went up to that fucking hotel room and let him wear the robe and let him jerk off.

That's Hollywood. but I'm not taking away from the girls who got... No, no, no, no. I'm not, because I believe them. No. I just loved that. I wasn't going to bring Harvey up.

Harvey, I got a friend, listen. I got a friend Harvey. I don't listen. I talked to him. I got so mad at me. Go ahead. I'm sorry, go ahead. Remember that episode?

Put it on Lee. What? Just put it on YouTube. Okay. The honeymoon is Harvey. Oh, the Harvey, honeymoon is episode. And Harvey said... Harvey, listen, I got a friend.

Go ahead. My friend, he's even bigger than me. Remember that guy? I got a friend Shirley who's bigger than you. That is the line of the fucking year. That was great. Before I came here, I left to see what episode was on tonight. Oh, tonight's a classic.

Tonight? At 11 o'clock on Channel 20. Channel 20, right? I know. Tonight's the one when he throws his wife out, and he makes a record all emotional. But he has to make the third record finally when he does a sweet one.

But Norton sends him the wrong record. The one that he's really angry. And he calls his wife a big mouth and all this. It's a classic episode, but I got it on tape, so I don't give a Frenchman's fuck. It's, it's, that's the one right there. Jesus, yeah, they got it, the bomber. Ralph meets Harvey.

Harvey was a great actor. This motherfucker was big. This, oh, fuck. Here we go. Right there's me to tell him. Here we go. And Harvey said, I'm going in and tell my friend Harvey.

Harvey Oh Harvey You're going to tell your friend Harvey Harvey He's going to tell Harvey I'm a nice name

I like him Not a nice name Harvey I don't care If you tell Harvey Go ahead and tell him He's got me mighty scared I'm shaking a death

You better be careful My friend is even bigger than me Your friend Harvey is bigger than you I have a friend Shirley That's bigger than you Ha ha. Thank you. Thank you.

Very lucky. Very lucky. It looks like you do. Watch his voice. Watch our Harvey talks. Watch how he talks. I told you you're not going to get the table. Now go away.

Come on, Martin, will you? And you beat it too, Harvey. Hey, you know, Rob, he's even bigger than your friend, Shirley. are going to be a little lopsided. What are you talking about, bookends? He said he was going to twist me and you into bookends. Oh, he did, huh?

So you're going to twist me and him into bookends? That's right, he's going to twist you and him into bookends. You've got nothing to worry about, Ralph. You're in the right, nobody can push you around. Why don't you, sure? That's not all he said. He made fun of your name.

He said Harvey was a funny name. Oh, he did, huh? Harvey's a lovely name. So, how? Harvey's a funny name. You're a real wise guy, huh? I think it's forehead to be so straight. You know what I might do to you?

I might punch you right in the mouth. Wait, wait, wait, wait. You can't talk to us that way. You're a key part of this. What are you yelling at me for? I wasn't the one to put you into a pretzel. He'd end. You're going to twist me into a pretzel.

I don't even like pretzel. You're there, George, she's going to twist me into a pretzel. All right, wise guy, I'll give you a chance. Come on, step outside. Well, Ralph, I'll hold your coat. Right, I don't too. Come on, wise guy, step outside and twist me into a pretzel. That is one of the classic.

Benson hers, boss, my, I grew up in Beckerman, that's my hometown. And then at the end, they set him up. Yeah. He comes in. and they make a guy bigger than him show up and he knocks him out. Oh my God. And the guy says,

my friend didn't show up. Gleeson. He couldn't make it tonight. Gleeson. And that was all one take, Lee. Really? That was live.

That shot live, Oh, shit. That's right. That's a live show. That shot live. That's shot fucking live, dog, right? Live.

I want to throw up last night. It's funny because, you know, we were both with the same age of for a while in the interview meetings. We were going to do a show for a minute. And then we both disappeared. We both fired them.

And I didn't see you around. You know how this town is. People go home and stuff like that, whatever. Yeah. And I was really happy to see you in Rocky Six. Balboa, yeah. Beautiful. Thank you.

You did a great job. And then, like, you know when you don't see somebody? And then you see them fucking ten times in two weeks. Right, right, right. And a few weeks later, it was some, maybe an episode, did they do something on Tuesday nights on one of those channels? and it was you walking six, eight feet from John Gotti about the interview. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

On tape, old tapes, old tapes. Yeah. And it was you interviewing him at one point, and then the other interview was the Irish guy. John Miller was there. Miller. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I got to be real close with him.

I got to be close with him because when I worked at Newsday, I got close with John, and, you know, he knew me from the whole fucking gambling thing. and I remember I went to see him downtown when he was on trial. I went to the trial, and that was a trip. Anthony Quinn went to the trial. Mickey Rock went through the trial. A lot of actors go to the trials. And I remember there was one moment where his life hung in the balance.

It was going to be, you're going to go to jail forever or whatever. And across from the court, downtown Manhattan, there's a restaurant. on March Street called Jim Bones. I think it's still there. It's a great fucking joint. Real fucking old school phone booth in a restaurant. Forget it.

And I followed him to the restaurant and I sat down with them. Jerry Shagel, Bruce Cutler, Sammy the Bull. But at one point, Sammy the Bull, he was looking me up and down and he said to John, like, what the fuck is this guy doing? What was this kid? And John said, he's all right.

And Sam, he said, yeah, but he's with the press. He said, yeah, but he's more right than them. I love that saying. So let me sit down. And he was good to me. He was good to me. His daughter's been good to me. She came to my book party.

I don't know. There are things in life that happen that you kind of get kissed by an angel. Like, why through Stu Feiner and the gambling thing, I would meet John Gotti and he would end up liking me and that would end up honestly making people think something about me like AJ's

you know AJ's around the mob that kind and it worked and then when I got into the mid-90s and I started running around it was a nightclub called Rouge and the Upper East Side which was all Genovese and scores the strip club

was Genovese and Gambino. But yet my name, even though as a gossip columnist, my name, they knew it, they accepted it, and they didn't fuck around with me. Now, how did Gumbanjani get in trouble? You know, Gumbar Johnny, he was around...

With either a door man, he was in the scores crew. They were shaking down the girls. Yeah, yeah. My roommate Chico was involved in all that. And between me and you, Gumbajani, he was working on fucking borrow time. There's not than he did that made him

fucking strong or tough or important. Kind of a lazy name too. No, no, no, no. It's an expression of respect. Gumbad John, Gumbada. You're working on a strip club shaking down the girls. They all did. The strippers they fucking paid

out up front. They used to pay out to everybody. They got shook down. Everybody shook people down. It was like a pyramid. Everybody got shook down money down to the security guards to the fucking valet guy. Everybody got shook down.

Everybody. And when the mobsters walked in, Joe Watts, Joe the German, all these mobsters, Angelo Bruno, all these mobsters would walk in and they'd say, and you mentioned this earlier about people paying people's rent,

like Eddie Murphy. When Mafiosa come to New York City clubs, they'd approach the head of security, who was my roommate Chico, who was no longer, he died, but they'd say, Cheek, how many guys are working tonight on security? And Chico would say, ah, you know, six.

All right, here. And they fucking, and they fucking just peel off fucking hundreds. And say, here, take care of the guy. His fucking, he's $2,800. Take care everybody. And Chico would do, you get three, you get four, you get two, you get five. And my ex-girlfriend was a bartender. And I'd see the bartender's, all the girls were hot bartender.

I'd see their faces. when the mafios who would walk in. They knew rent is covered this month. If Joe Watts and Vinnie Gorgeous walked in, Angelo Bruno, you name it. They knew, okay, we're cool. If a bartender walked a scotch and soda to Joe Watts, she got $250, you know?

If he came in twice that week, she got a $500 that week. Those guys, they kept the city running. They kept it oiled. You know, more than celebrities. They were just, they fucking took care everybody. They were great. They were great. And because I vouched for Chico,

I ended up being on the bad side of them because Chico at one point started collecting money for my buddy. He was a pot dealer who he had outstanding debts. And Chico said, I'll get your money. Because one of the big Genovese guys, Ralphie Coppola, who's now dead, he liked us and he said,

listen, you're around me now. It was like Donnie Brascoe. You're around me. Don't worry, but no one can touch you. Anybody bothers you, say, I'm with Ralphie. Okay. When you hear that, you think you won the... You did.

In essence, you won the fucking lottery. You could do whatever the fuck you want. Someone bothers you? Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You got to talk to Ralphie. And it works. So Chico was asking for money from an old guy who's had a fucking pot debt.

He didn't want to pay. He goes, listen, I'm with Ralphie. Unfortunately, that guy's father grew up with Ralphie, and he told his father, and the father called Ralphie and said, why is this kid using your name for a fucking marijuana debt? So one night, Ralphie calls and says,

why don't you and Chico come up to Gino's on 3rd Avenue? I'll have a fucking great meal. We'll be out all night. We'll get to drink some fucking gropas. It's going to be great. All right. We all go to Gino's. It's fucking fat snowing in Manhattan.

Fucking great. Best meal. He says, hey, J. Why don't you go do your thing? Me and Chico are going to hang? Okay. So about an hour later, I get a phone call, and Chico was just destroyed in the street. They beat the fuck out of him.

Well, when I left, they walked him out. They had a nice meal, cigars, Grappa, and they just punched the fuck out of him. I mean, he had to have a screen put in his stomach because his intestines were coming out. So they beat the shit out of him. And I vouched for Chico. There's that word again, vouched. I call one of my guys who's an old-time mobster, and I said, what do I do now?

I vouch for Chico, I got to go back to the club. He said, don't change anything you do. Go to the club, go to the bar, order your espresso with Sanbuka, and I did. And when I went there, the same guys who would see me and hug me and go crazy. Hey, Joe, hey, what's going on? I walked in, the fucking stairs they gave me, they didn't say nothing.

They looked at me with fucking eyes like daggers. and I sat there at the bar and I drank my espresso and I left and I was ready to get jumped on Park Avenue I knew I was going to get jumped, killed, knife, whatever. Nothing happened. Those days are awful. As much fun as you have with the guys, you know, wiping out a bar in Westchester County,

cleaning out their liquor, whatever the fuck, grabbing girls. When you're on their bad side, oh my God, is that the fucking scariest thing in the world? horrifying. Anyhow, the guys who were after who were all dead, they're all dead. I mean, this is 20 years later. It's a horrible lifestyle,

but they're all done. When I lived in Boston, I lived in the North End for a couple years. North End is tough. And the rumor was that there were a couple people on my street that were actually connected. And I didn't know how much of it was true. Is there actually people there?

North End? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Boston. How about Whitey Bulger, for one? Well, he was here. Yeah, I know. Are you going to try to get Grubano on your podcast? I, you know, that'd be great.

I don't know how much he's talking. Yeah, I would love to. I'd try, sure. I don't know how much he wants to talk about it. But, you know, Sammy ratted. You know, people rat. I can't even, it ain't the old days. And this is, we're going back 20 years.

When he ratted, it was really not what people did, not what tough guys did. But who's the joke on? Everybody's dead. Sammy went to Arizona. He did his time. By the way, he had an ecstasy ring that was bringing in $750,000 fucking dollars a month when he was in Arizona. That's how he got pinched. He did his time.

He's out now. He'll probably get a... Not probably. I know he's going to get a reality show. I know for a fact who's going to get a reality show. I know for a fact who's going to fucking be the showrunner. I made a joke on it on my podcast. It's going to run in a couple of,

in about six, seven days. That, you know, suddenly this guy's going to get more work than me, Sammy the Bull. They're going to hire him for more shows than me. He'll probably be hosting a show that I would have hosted, but now Sammy the Bull is going to get it. That's the way Hollywood is. What am I going to do?

You know, everybody rats. It ain't the old days. The new guy's rat. The new guys want their screenplays to be made into movies. It's a very different mafia. It's very different. Don't you think? You had a very interesting life, man.

From journalists to covering all type of shit. Like I said, one time I watched one of your shows when you were at the magician's house. Oh, yeah. Not Houdini, somebody that was fucking crazy on Laurel Canyon. Well, David Blames it, buddy, but it wasn't his house. No, no, no, no, somebody that was dead. No, we had an investigator. somebody.

Yeah. That's when A&E was kicking. I liked A&E a lot then. No, I was on E. Just E. Oh, you on E? He was hot, though, but he was hot. He was hot.

He was hot. He was, true Hollywood stories, mysteries and scandals. Howard Stern. He was, he was, he was hot. He was hot. Howard Stern was on the, that's right. Holy shit. Yeah, I used to follow, I was on after Howard.

I was on before Howard, and then I had a talk show after Howard. was only on for four weeks It was a fucking It would have been good But they pulled the plug Because they were fucking nervous But uh Those

He was great He was he was great back then They let me do what I wanted to do They said what else do you want to do I said I want a talk show Okay I grabbed the fucking loft in Manhattan I found a place downtown

With a Chinese doorman With an elevator that went upstairs I booked the guests I booked Dan Rather Al Sharpton fucking supermodels. It was great, but it lasted only four weeks.

And the last week, check this out. This is Hollywood. George Hamilton came on. I said, if you let me have this show, trust me, people are going to show up

because it's going to be a spot to go before you go out. My barmaids were hot Brazilians. I had alcohol in the audience. No one had alcohol yet. This is before Jimmy Kimmel. No one had

all. It was the fucking crowd was great. I had music acts. Everybody smoked weed. Like, it was a loft. So people smoked weed before they came on. Very loosey-goosey. And for the fifth show,

I'm ready. I'm at the, I'm staying in the hotel and the Upper West Side. I'm about to go downtown to shoot. And the girl I was dating was my little assistant and she gets a phone call. Oh, okay, really? Oh, oh, I'll put them on. Oh, what's up? I had a book.

My book came out was in the window of bookstores. I had a fucking TV show. I had a talk show. And I hear, listen, the show is not going to go tonight. So what do you mean? I had Chris Rock was a guest. I had like five great guests. They pulled the plug as I'm going down to do the show.

Not live, but I was going down. So they let the stars fly in. They pulled the plug. And I was out of my fucking. mind. That's the kind of shit that happens in Hollywood. I was literally dressed and ready to go on and they pulled the fucking plug.

It's the worst. And Joey it took me eight fucking years. There was a lesbian boss at E named Mindy Herman who fucking loved me and every article and the reporter and variety was AJ's the best and she pulled a plug

and it killed me for eight years and one night I got a fucking Facebook message from Mindy Herman. I go, what the fuck is this? I accept. She says, I want to apologize. It's not you. It was me. I'm nervous about talk shows. You were great. I'm so sorry.

I said, do you know what my life has been like for the last eight years? How fucking miserable I've been? How you know, like that would have been my ticket. I was going back to New York to host a talk show, which is something I always wanted to do. And this cunt just decided,

nah, I don't want to do it. Killed me. It destroyed me. But eight years, I was miserable for eight fucking years. That's the business, bro. I'm happy you got over it, AJ. Yeah, I'm over it now. I'm here with fucking Joey Coco.

You're fucking close by. You have your children. You look good. That's the most important thing. Listen, it's like fucking Mick Jagger said, you can't get what you want. You can't always get what you want. But you get what you need. We put a lot of the fucking thing.

What's the name of your podcast, Isaiah? Fame is a bitch. When does it come down? Every Wednesday and Friday are new episodes. And you'll like it because lately I've been, the last six, seven weeks, I've been outing every pervert,

every fucking pedophile in Hollywood. I'm very close to the Harvey Weinstein situation. So I got the goods on everybody. So you got in trouble for what? For Harvey Weinstein? I didn't get in trouble. Harvey gave me a book, 20 years ago. Harvey's been my man.

And Harvey asked me for help a year ago in December. He called me and said, come to the peninsula. I need your help. This is way before anything came out. I went to the peninsula. I said, what's up? He said, look, they're doing a bad article on me. New York Magazine's going to kill me. I said, okay, what do you want to do? He says, why don't you write, let's make believe,

why don't you be an author and you're going to write a bad book about me? I'll give you people to call and if you call them and they tell you bad shit about me I'll know where the bad stories are coming from I said okay he said I'll give you 20,000 a month this is going to be fine I said so a week goes by he didn't call

two weeks no call I said boss what's up he said hang tight and I never heard back but between me and you I said I can't write a bad book about Harvey people know him his friend they know he doesn't work but thank God because he didn't say the stories or surrounding him were about rape

and chicks getting molested. He just said there's a bad article coming out and I'm the guy 13 years ago who protected him when he was cheating on his wife and having an affair and I buried that story for months and months and months

because he needed to help because Disney and Miramax were doing a big business endeavor. So I'm close to him. But I never knew. I never knew this side of him. Never. I figure the guy that came, he's a movie mogul.

They get laid. Stallards come to them. They fuck him. I understand. Howard Hughes, Darrell Zannick. You name the mogul. You know, come on. It's Hollywood.

But I never in a million years ever thought fucking pushing indoors, raping. and shit. No, never. So him and I talked a couple of weeks ago, and he said, you talk to the New York Times? I said, yeah. He says, why would you do that? I said, because the story they came to me at was wrong. They had it wrong. They had it that I

suggest that I write a book about you. I said, that's not true. He says, bullshit. I said, no, Harvey. I said, I got a wife and family. I got a fucking career. I can't go down like that. It was wrong. So I cooperated and I told the kid what was right. He says, AJ, you and I, we're guys that don't talk. I said, I understand, but it was full of errors and I had to correct that. He said, okay, what else did you say? So I told them what I said, and I said, not for nothing, Harvey. He said, why are you worried about me? Do you know what people are saying about you? He says, no, I don't. Tell me. I said, you don't know what they're saying?

They said, they're calling you the biggest fucking monster in the last hundred years. He said, AJ, everything you hear was consensual. And we went down girl by girl. I'm not going to bore you with the details. But at the end of the phone call, he said, listen, you heard Clooney, you heard Damon, you heard these guys talk about me, Affleck. He said, if I told everybody what I know about that, this town, it would fall to its fucking knees and stop.

I said, I'm sure you're right, bro. He said, okay, Amigo, I'll see you down the road. I said, Harvey, I got two pictures on my wall in my office. You and John Gotti. He said, that's some fucking company you keep. I said, yeah. So I'm not betting against him. I'm sure he's guilty, but I'm not betting against him coming back.

I won't. I just think that a guy like him, if he had this script of Pulp Fiction, if he had the script to the next Pulp Fiction now, I'm telling you right now, there'd be a line up and down the 405 with people who want the accolades, the money, and the fame to work with him. Even with the fucking fires raging on each side of the highway. That's why this fucking town. Satan lives here, brother. What's that? Satan lives here part time. No kidding. No kidding. In the beginning of the exorcist, the archaeologist, they see him he finds a little devil.

He lives in Satan. He lives here in Hollywood. And the other part, he's like a snowbird. Saint's a fucking snowbird. Great to have you on, my brother. I'm happy you. I love you, buddy. You too.

Those are some great fucking stories. Thank you, Pally. God bless you, man. Lee, how you doing, brother? I'm doing great, buddy. I didn't hear Lee tonight. No, he doesn't need to say. It's Hanukkah.

Maybe it's a double bomb. He's trying to rest. He's resting. No, no. It was great stories. Double bonk, I can tell by your eyes, you shot. Oh, no. What about the thousand milligrams of TAC were you?

I didn't know about that. Yeah. What about that enema you gave him earlier? I didn't know about that. That was tremendous. So, Lee, you downloaded the Anchor app. I did. That was a great.

Okay. It's a very cool app. It's, it's, you put in what you're interested in. And what you want to hear, like, the latest, news stories, sports, I'm sure they have stuff about gossip. Let's just take a drink of water. So what you got to do, Lee? But they have these amazing people who are doing like short, five-minute-long podcasts

that they upload straight from their phone. And it's great you can call in to these separate different channels and talk directly to the people who are doing the shows. It's really interesting. And there's so much content. I had a really good time looking at it this afternoon. Well, this episode of the church is brought to you by Anchor. If you ever wanted to make a podcast like this one,

but thought the process would be expensive and horrible, listen, no need to worry. Anchor is the quickest and easiest way to make downloads, distribute your own podcast, period. Just upload the app, record your phone, record with your phone, and publish. Best of all, it's completely, free. Check it out and make

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Download the app. It's that easy. All right? You want to make a podcast like this one? And I know. This is scary to everybody. You think there's going to a bunch of computers and wires and whatnot. Boom. Just download the app, record with your phone, and publish the thing. It's that easy.

And best of all, like I said before, it's completely free. So check it out and make your own podcast. You ready at anchor. Dot FM. Again, anchor. dot FM slash church. That's anchor. dot FM slash church.

Now, like I said before, it's the important time of the year. I know you're writing a letter to Santa Claus, and you're telling him he still owes your money. But the second thing on the list is that you want a clean fucking butt sheet. You got excess pine cones having from your bowels of holly and some fudgy pudding, smear with a mud, your muffler. You don't need this. It's the holidays.

You want to start 2018 with a clean asshole. You know what you need? You need a tushy bidet. It'll clean your ass better than any toilet paper on the fucking. fucking market. It uses clean water to spray your butt fucking minty fresh without the fucking Irish spring. You follow what I'm saying to you? And it's portable. You put it right on your fucking bathroom and there you are. I'm one of those guys, I wash my ass

and then I take a shower, you know what I'm saying, to double check the work. No more skin marks, no more sugar burned ferries hanging. You ever go to you? You ever go to wipe your ass in this old toilet paper there for the night before? And it's rolling. And it's rolling. up like a fucking skinny joint. Like a fucking joint with no weed. Almost like a spitball. Yeah, they're fucking disgusting. So listen,

they all start at $69 and they come in beautiful different colors. And I'm sure Santa can afford one of those. So stop wiping that fucking nasty fucking muffler and start living like a doctor with Tushy. And they come

in different colors. That's hellotushy.com. Use code church. CHUR-C-H for 10% off your order. Listen to me. Why give that uncle the same fucking boring gift when you can give that motherfucker a bidet and know he's going to pre-listen,

you give a 64-year-old uncle, a bidet who his wife died? Who's better than you? He's going to sit there all day wagging that fucking dick like Harvey with hot water hitting his asshole, you know what I'm saying? Hot water pop job. Oh shit. Hellotushy.com.

Use code church for 10% off your order. again, I want you to go with anchor.fm.fm. That's anchor doc FM slash church and Tushy. Also a shout out to Fuji Sports.com. You're going to make a commitment. You're going to join Jitchi. You want a bigger fucking ghee, A5, A6. Go to Fuji and get the Separito.

You're not going to fucking be sorry. Press fucking church and get 15% off. You know how we do it today. Thank you, AJ. Benz. Thank you, brother. I love you, man. My fucking number one Christ, Come on. Lee Syatt. Let's kill him with some fucking musically killing.

Come on. Take me out, motherfucker. Come on. What the fuck are you doing, Lee? Come on, motherfucker. There you go. Oh. Kid in me? Get down. Get down.

Let's get down. Get down. Get down. Get down. Get down.